Well done Macca (trainer rides don't count ) and hope to see you out and about soon Lewy.

I've a long ride planned for this weekend, so went for a relaxing cruise with the crew this morning - and today's ride reinforced why I like to ride.

It was the usual thursday route, with the usual friends but we planned to stop for the dawn service at Coledale before turning back for home via a hill or two. Back in town we stopped for a cup of espresso by the beach, heaps of people were out now enjoying the holiday and then chased each other hard on a segment for fun. A great morning to be riding

Oh the joys of helping people out. Ex work mate was staying in Culburra for the holidays and was having camera problems. Went around to give him a hand and his wife and 2 sons are coughing and sneezing everywhere. Excellent. I have spent the last 3 glorious days on the couch doing my best impression of a mucus pump.

Hope to get out for a ride on Saturday. 7 days off the bike is hurting.

Well done on the big month macca33, I'm sure you'll get those 120 km of real rides in to make it a full 1000 in the real world, although I reckon 120 km of trainer riding would do my head in.

norbs, sorry to hear of your illness. Hope you get over it quick.

And continuing on with my catching up with the last couple of weeks of the thread:

Well done to Howzat, ColinOldnCranky and coffeeandwine on getting back into the green in the last couple of weeks.

Top effort on the Goulburn Crookwell ride and subsequent return to green Graham.

grantw wrote:

riles wrote:haha the way your saying that is implying otherwise i would say really looking forward to it though, going to be a great weekend of riding thats for certain

No, seriously, the pass isn't that bad, sure it's long but the grade is pretty even, the road surface is terrific at the moment and the scenery superb. I reckon the climb up Tourist road with 130+km in your legs will be memorable, and the drag up out of the RNP to Bald Hill is never easy.

Day two has some great roads and a few climbs to look forward to as well. You'll be having a great time

I'll echo Grant's comment on the pass not being that bad riles. Looking at the qualification criteria for the ride the pass should be well within the capability of anyone that can qualify for the ride. Whether it feels that way after the 100+km to get there is another matter though.

The weather in Brisbane has been great for cycling lately. For a couple of weeks now, I have been taking alternative routes to the direct but hectic-dangerous road on my commute, Oxley Road. Adds some more kms, mixes it up a bit, and adds some nice climbs. One of the quieter back roads follows the train line for 3 or 4 stations. That's okay, but the other night I was passing the stations just after the train, so people were getting out on the street and lighting up their cigarettes just as I passed. Got some good lungfuls of second hand smoke.

I am in downtown Yass tonight, drove down this afternoon to get a good nights sleep before starting the Audax Riverina Romp tomorrow morning. Weather is looking great too

Yass is an attractive little town and I'm kicking myself for never wandering past the Service centre for a look before, some beautiful turn of the century architecture and the river appears to have a nice bike path along it. The bottle shop was a very pleasant surprise, they have beers I can't get in Wollongong, so perhaps I'll advisedly I'm enjoying a Byron Brewing Figgy IPA before dinner and an early night.

Best of luck with the Riverina Romp Grant, are you doing the 600 or 1000?

I'll be hitting the dirt again tomorrow, starting off with a lap of the red loop in Wingello with one of celesteboy's friends before having another attempt at working out the best route between there and Bundanoon for the Bundanoon Bash next month. Since I had that planned I'd decided to head out for an easy ride this afternoon. Initial plan was to set a maintainable pace for the first half of the ride, have a crack at a short segment just after that then back to the steady pace. Before I realised what I was doing the steady pace saw me at around PB pace for the ride so I decided to cancel the crack at the short segment and instead try and keep the overall pace up for the second half of the ride. In the end my PB attempt was beaten by traffic, causing me to loose all momentum on 4 seperate occasions, falling just 14 seconds short and 45 seconds off cracking the 50 minute mark. In between the traffic I did manage to set PBs for the two longest segments of the ride though so I was pretty happy with that and feel that the 50 minute mark is within my reach. Now I just hope I don't suffer too much for it on tomorrow's ride.

Got up to the Highlands to meet up with Gavin and do some more recon work for the Bundanoon Bash.

It was quite a pleasant day for riding in the highlands and things started well as Gavin pulled into the Wingello Base Camp before I'd finished parking. After some introductions, a brief chat and getting the bikes ready we headed of on the red loop. It didn't take long for my legs to remind me of yesterday's efforts as they complained strongly while I started watching Gavin pull away on the climbs. Despite my best attempt they didn't have it in them to make it up the wall this time, I will make it one day though.

After a detour to see the memorial for some fireman killed when their truck got stuck in fires we continued on through the rest of the red loop. Continued being a quiet and pleasant day on the trails with the only downside being the damage some motorbikes had done to the single track in a few places. A flat tyre a bit later on and I got my first reminder of proper technology usage. I stopped the garmin before fixing the flat and forgot to turn it back on when taking off afterwards. Concentrating on the single track meant I didn't realise it was telling me to start it again for a little while.

After completing the red loop it was time to head to the Wingello Shop for a burger and milkshake before farewelling Gavin and sorting out the second part of my day. It was here that I became aware of my second technology use issue of the day. I'd done all my planning of the course so far online and not had any luck getting any real idea of where the boat in Penrose State Forest was. One final google on the phone found a strava ride called Penrose Forest Yacht Club. A bit hard to make out on the phone I pulled out my Highland MTB trail map to check the area and find there's a marked ride on the map with directions to find the Yacht. If only I'd gone with the old paper technology sooner I would have known where to head weeks ago.

So for ride two it was off into Penrose in search of a yacht. Turned out to be a very worthwhile adventure. As well as finding the Yacht the area it was in had some of the nicest fire trails of the forest. Going through both native and plantation forests and the Yacht Club itself probably the lushest area of it all. So now it's back to the route planning to see how I go at working it in to the 70 km route.

Who is online

About the Australian Cycling Forums

The largest cycling discussion forum in Australia for all things bike; from new riders to seasoned bike nuts, the Australian Cycling Forums are a welcoming community where you can ask questions and talk about the type of bikes and cycling topics you like.